Re: archery commentary

[Greg Mowczko <mooch@ns1.cioe.com>]

> From: "Rick Myers" <leviathan_60@hotmail.com>
>
> >Combined comments on Rick's and Wright's post follow. 
> >
> >> From: Wright Frazier <khelek>
> >>
> >> > From: Rick
> >> > 
> >> > There has been a lot of discussion regarding bow range extension.  On 
> >> > the one hand, I do like Johns idea of baseing it on the archers bow 
> >> > skill.  However, noone has mentioned that the addition of the Keiron 
> >> > Great bow last saturday has already increased bow ranges by 225% (160 to 
> >> > 360).  I would like to see what effects there are on the game from more 
> >> > than than doubling the bow range before we try to add a skill option 
> >> > boosting it by up to 450%.
> >
> >Using a bow skill to allow for the increase sounds good. There should still
> >be the increases based on the type of bows introduced. Maybe the ranges should
> >be dropped back down a bit but I don't believe they should get dropped down
> >as far as they were. If warriors don't like being picked of by arrows they
> >should ditch the armor sprint to the bowman and KILL him quickly and efficiently.
>
> With a bow range of 720 feet (200% of Keiron Bow Range), your naked 
> warrior takes 11 rounds of fire to get into melee range.  With the 
> Bowman switching over to quickdraw once you're inside 360ft you take 8 
> or 9 Broad-tips at a d10 each before your warrior arrives to BEGIN 
> killing him quickly and efficiently.  Sprinting will help do a marginal 
> degree, but being a naked target, the bowman with descent missile mod 
> won't miss.  Expect to take 6d10 damage if you can make a sprinting 
> check, 8d10 if you cannot.  

The gutsy warrior will do it without near that damage. I ( being an extreme
case can get there by sprinting in 7 rounds. They need a 23 to hit ( yeah I'm
naked and special ) I run up the wall ( gotsta love effect STICKUM ) and kill
them. Either by hacking one at a time ( they are on a parapet right? ) or
L. BOLT the line of them and then backup comes along.

> >Or get a firemage to go forth and blow them away with a fireball. 8d6 in one
> >round after being the target of a couple of arrows is a risk.
>
> Again with a ruling that the range can be extended by skill to 720 feet, 
> it's not a couple arrows it's 7 to 9 (depending on sprinting, assuming a 
> naked mage) before the firemage gets to 120 feet to toss a fireball 
> (this does ignore finessing).

But supposing I'm not Rate 107 with a cool combination of items. I get myself
a large table or something and with a few others walk up to the archers ( or
at least until my mage is in range ) and have at them. Fighting people with
bows is not actually trying to fight them it is trying to counter them.

> Imagine the above scenerio with an archer who has Flaming Arrows.  The 
> sprinting warrior eats 6 to 8 arrows at 1d10 + 1d8 each.
>
> I like seeing the bow range extended to make missile weapons more 
> useful.  But quading the bow range (Keiron Great Bow with skill is a 
> 450% bow range jump), is likely to unbalance things in the opposite 
> direction.
>
>  The only problem
> >I see with the range situation is that there tend to be scores of dedicated
> >archers for the enemies while we, as adventurers, tend to be diverse.
> >
>
> Yes, the above examples assume a single archer.  Banks of archers now 
> become unassailable as there range with skill is 5 or 6 times the 
> longest ranged spells.
>
> Rick

You just need to think more before doing the attack. What I wouldn't give
to have had some mobile cover in our game this weekend. Speaking of which.

What about cover? ( not Rob's suggestion of cover which I am against since
combat is fluid and that sounds like holding an action ).  The ability to
furnish unpassable shields is missing from our game. ( Obviously nothing
is unpassable you can come in from the sides ). As GMs we all let someone
hide on the other side of a wall but Trees and Tables generally have not
afforded any protection we might as well be in the open to ranged attacks.
Does anyone have a simple way to determine the protection of an overturned
table? No charts please.
					     Greg

ps. I have a very large spew about drowning coming soon. ( I hope soon
that is since I accidently mailed it to John and not the whole list ).